massive resistance

1. The opposition of many white leaders in the South to the decision of the Supreme Court in Brown versus Board of Education in 1954. The Court had declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The expression massive resistance was used in a letter signed by over a hundred members of Congress, calling on southerners to defy the Supreme Court's ruling.

Example Sentences

Among many other penalties, Massive Resistance cut off state funds to any public school attempting to integrate, even though integration was officially the law of the land.

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In the 1960s it was not just the political assassinations, starting with John F. Kennedy in 1963, but also the waves of violence caused by the social upheavals of the decade, from opposition to the Vietnam War to the white supremacist massive resistance to Civil Rights.

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To take just one of many examples, Southern school boards resisting desegregation often forced Black plaintiffs to bring individual lawsuits, but piecemeal litigation barely made a dent in massive resistance until equity stepped in.

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It is different, but perhaps the closest analog might be so-called "massive resistance" in the South and some other parts of the United States to the mandate of Brown v.

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The six-part series speaks to the power of regular people banding together in whatever way they can to create massive resistance to injustice.

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